hey what's up everyone this is stefan from project life mastery and today we're going to be talking about dopamine detoxing i thought i'd share with you guys an update of my experience my progress and my results of having been on a dopamine detox off and on for the last two years now if you're someone that is unaware about how dopamine affects your life maybe this is the very first time you've heard this concept or this idea of a dopamine detox or a dopamine fast then hopefully this video can be educational eye-opening maybe even life-changing for
you just as it was for me when i first discovered this years ago in my life it can offer an explanation for maybe why you feel tired and lethargic throughout your day why you feel lazy and unmotivated you just can't get yourself to do things that you know will progress your life or maybe why things are not really giving you the pleasure the joy the happiness that they should you feel this numbness like a zombie going throughout your day and going throughout your life where nothing seems to give you that joy it's hard for you
to experience the ups and the positive emotions in your day-to-day life i know for me when i discovered this it revolutionized my entire life sent me on a new course a new direction that my life is so much better off for now if you're someone that's already aware about dopamine and you've also maybe watched some videos already on youtube about dopamine detox dopamine fast then i also think this video can be helpful just to have you hear from someone that's been on this journey now for about two years there's been ups there's been downs it's
not just been like this it takes some time to reset your brain and rewire your brain to be more in a healthy more sustainable way and so i think it can also provide some motivation some encouragement for some of you guys that have been curious about this maybe you've not embarked on this journey yourself or maybe you are on this journey and uh it can be helpful just to hear from someone else that's been on it and kind of compare your results and the experience because some of this i think can resonate with you now
let's explain what dopamine is for those of you that don't know and by the way i have done i think two videos already explaining this and going in depth about a year a year and a half ago i'll link those in the description here on youtube but dopamine is a neurotransmitter that's released in the brain anytime there's an anticipation of a reward or pleasure it's been a really important part of our survival as human beings because it's what motivates us dopamine is released when there's food or water or a mating opportunity that can allow us
to reproduce and without dopamine we wouldn't have motivation to continuously strive to find food water shelter you know reproduction opportunities we wouldn't be motivated for that which has been essential to our survival as human beings now the challenges and the problem lies in this modern world that we live in we live in a modern world where there's a lot of things that are over stimulating our dopamine in our brain they're causing our dopamine levels to spike a lot more than they normally would in in nature natural ways uh you know as we've been uh designed
to be able to release dopamine for and so in the case of myself i lived a life where i was always chasing pleasure instant gratification anything that can give you a boost to hit a pleasure was addictive for me and my journey started when i was addicted to video games which overstimulates dopamine levels to unnatural levels in fact video game developers they even design the games knowing how to get you addicted to their product and so they know how to incentivize you to offer rewards to flash certain things on the screen or on your phone
in order to release dopamine in your brain which gives you this incredible high and makes you want to come back to play that game and for me i used to be addicted to video games when i was in high school to give you an idea i would skip school to play video games at home i would play for hours and hours my parents would go to sleep at night i'd sneak downstairs in the computer room and play video games all day it was a way for me to escape reality and to enter into this world
of fantasy and the more that i did that the more that i over consumed dopamine then it had negative effects and consequences in my life i felt like i just wanted to isolate myself i didn't really get dopamine and pleasure from going outside the house from socializing with people other things didn't really give that to me because i overstimulated my dopamine through something that's artificial and unnatural like video games so that's how it first started for me and i've actually there's um certain types of people that they call have a dopaminergic personality i think they
have less dopamine receptors than the average person and they're more prone to addiction and so if you know my story i was once addicted to sugar also stimulates dopamine levels i had a binge eating disorder where i'd you know go to the store get a tub of ice cream get chocolate bars chips you know buy tons of junk food go home and consume thousands of calories in the sitting and then repeat that process every every other day and we know it's pretty bad so i'll explain to you guys some of the things that overstimulate dopamine
but the important thing you've got to understand is that anything that's gonna over stimulate your dopamine okay it's gonna give you a huge spike you're gonna feel great you're gonna have this high from it whatever comes up must come down and so usually when you have a big spike in dopamine there's a crash and what happens is you can go into this dopamine deficit state also what i call a dopamine hangover and so if you've ever you know play video games you know eat junk food watch pornography spend hours on social media just scrolling through
aimlessly on tick tock instagram facebook watching youtube videos binge watching netflix um you know maybe gambling or alcohol or drugs like marijuana all of these things they overstimulate your dopamine and so what happens is you'll have a huge crash when you have that crash often what you do is you feel tired you feel unmotivated you feel lazy you feel like you don't want to do anything and the problem lies when you consistently and repeatedly engage in activities that overstimulate your dopamine because you build a tolerance where i'll give you an example let's say if you've
ever drink coffee or caffeine you'll know that the first time you drink coffee you feel great your body is releasing adrenaline you get this incredible high and it can be very addictive and so when you start drinking coffee on a daily basis what happens is you don't get that same high than you originally did from the first time that you had coffee or caffeine in fact you build a tolerance to it and then as time goes on maybe several months or maybe a year one cup of coffee doesn't do it for you anymore it doesn't
really give you much effect and so now you need two cups of coffee and then it's a matter of time before you need three cups of coffee to get the effect and then what's your life like when you don't drink coffee you feel tired irritable uh you know you just can't get yourself to do anything because you've built a dependency on it but also you've wired your brain to be dependent on this drug caffeine and when you don't get that hit you're in this deficit state you have these withdrawals these cravings for it and you
need it to function and it's the same thing with dopamine is when you consistently stimulate it what happens is you no longer get the same pleasure from things that used to give you pleasure in your life you know and so when you've always been setting the bar for your pleasure by having sugar junk you know junk food and pornography and video games and alcohol and gambling and the internet and social media all these things have been overstimulating your dopamine you no longer can feel the joy and the pleasure of just looking out at the stars
looking at the clouds looking at birds you know enjoying a sunset or a sunrise there's certain things that just don't really give you much pleasure you know i know for me um you know in my teenage years and also my 20s as well i was addicted to pornography and i used to spend hours in a day watching pornography and i didn't know the effects that that had on me until later in my life and i eventually learned that it was making me less attracted to reality less attracted to women and more attracted to fantasy you
know i trained my brain to you know when you watch pornography and guys or girls that have watched pornography probably know this you might have multiple tabs going on every time you see a new woman or a new guy or whatever it gives you that hidden dopamine and you're just constantly chasing that high and just kind of riding that wave of dopamine but what happens is you've now trained your brain to be desensitized towards actually being attracted to a actual real human being which can't compete with the overstimulation that you're getting from technology that's just
unnatural it's not reality it's a fantasy and so that was something that was very alarming to me when i discovered that and was something that made me remove that from my life and that's what i've essentially done over the last several years of my life um i mean i overcame my video game addiction in my 20s actually when i was maybe around 18 or 19 years old i stopped playing video games i still you know engage in some of these things occasionally and i want you to know it's okay to do so here and there
but it's the over consumption the overstimulation of it that's going to have negative effects on your life okay so as i walk you guys through this in this video and kind of what i've shared so far i want you to pay attention does any of this relate does any of this resonating with you some of you maybe this is a non-issue but others you know if you're like myself and you felt the laziness you have no motivation in your life you're always procrastinating and putting things off you can't get yourself to do things that could
be incredibly frustrating because you have this inner conflict you have these desires and goals and ambitions for your life but you have this conflict where your dopamine is in a deficit state you're in this hangover this chronic hangover and it's hard to get yourself out of that to pursue these things they just don't give you that motivation as they should you know or you always feel tired you know i know for me i'd have on days and off days i'd have you know a day or two where i feel great i feel normal and then
i'd have a day or two where i just couldn't get myself to do much it's incredibly frustrating and this is what really revealed the problem to me and part of what the solution is so for me when i discovered this i decided to do a dopamine detox the dopamine detox is where you intentionally remove things that over stimulate dopamine for a period of time and so for me i removed social media i didn't access facebook instagram i didn't use youtube i set up blockers on my devices my phone my computer so i couldn't access these
things for a period of time and that was a great opportunity for me to kind of reset my brain and just kind of you know find other things to preoccupy myself other things that are more healthy and sustainable that can still give me dopamine but not at that same extreme that technology is um so that was something that i did you know pornography was something that i removed completely from my life because especially when you're in a relationship then it's very detrimental to your relationship um alcohol is something that you know i rarely consume maybe
once a month maybe a glass of wine here and there so that was something i'd removed sometimes in california or maybe in vancouver i'd have some marijuana so that's something that i removed and maybe might enjoy occasionally you know my time that i spend watching things on my computer and really just the time that i spend on devices has drastically been reduced over the last two years and even at times just eliminating them completely now i know this is maybe not practical for everybody especially maybe you your job your career requires you to be on
the computer requires you to be on social media whatever it is but even for myself as a social media influencer and a youtuber i eventually had to make the decision in my life that i was going to make my mental health my mental my emotional well-being more important than my career or making money and the reality is is that it is you know there's nothing more important because what good is it having all the money and having a great career if it's affecting your life in this negative way and you're not feeling happiness and joy
now that's not to say that you can't still find a way to have a balance and we're going to just we're going to discuss that so i started removing these things from my life and drastically reducing them for my life and what i did was i started to replace the free time that i had with other activities that are more natural and more sustainable so for example um one of the best things i think you can do is a few things number one is to socialize actually get out of the house meet people interact with
people you know that's what people did before the internet came along and you know we can socialize and interact online but you're not getting the same depth you're not getting the same connection it's not the same just typing to someone or communicating through technology as it is being in person with other human beings so that was something that was huge for resetting my brain another one was just being outside in nature getting out of the house because in the house it's very easy to get the comforts and the pleasures and you know the addictions and
cravings that you're going to have to all the different vices that are going to overstimulate your dopamine and so for me getting outside going for walks um you know going to the beach you know which is right there for me i'm in panama right now there's a golf course right here so i've been getting into golf playing tennis playing basketball going to the gym you know going out on the boat on the ocean and you know with the sea doo for example just finding other activities that they still stimulate dopamine but not in an unnatural
level as what technology will other things i started doing was enjoying puzzles you know just putting together puzzles which i find just really puts me in the present moment and things that before honestly i would consider to be boring because i needed the stimulation that things like making a puzzle was boring for me i just couldn't be engaged by that and that kind of shows part of what the problem is when you overstimulate your dopamine certain things like meditation for me was something that i resisted so much but has been a huge part of my
solution in my recovery from over consumption of dopamine because learning how to just sit there and be still and silent and calm and embrace boredom or whatever emotions might arise and release and let go and surrender that that is a huge thing because you'll have cravings and temptations that come up but you learn how to just sit with it and to let it go and it always fades and passes because all temptations and cravings and emotions are temporary they're fleeting they're like the clouds in the sky they come and they go if you just watch
and observe them they eventually fade so um making puzzles playing chess was another thing uh actually being with my partner tatiana my wife and connecting with her and being present with her you know and spending time with my dog and spending you know all these things that really i think are important to life and our fulfillment as human beings unfortunately has gotten lost in many ways because people are addicted to technology it's one of the concerns that i have with the metaverse i think the metaverse just like anything has a lot of pros and advantages
but of course will have negative consequences when you over consume and put yourself in this metaverse world where you're disconnected from reality so there's going to be some negative effects to people's emotional and mental well-being because that's an unnatural world that we're going to experience that the human brain has not evolved to be able to have the capacity to be able to deal with and handle so replacing and making these changes in my life has been huge has been incredibly significant and let me share with you some of the results um one is i feel
way more stable and consistent and just kind of even keel throughout the day i don't have those same ups and those same downs that i used to i'm kind of more in between in the middle and i have ups but they're not like crazy ups like this i've learned to let go uh which is hard to do once you've experienced certain highs that's one of the reasons by the way you want to avoid drugs because certain drugs like heroin cocaine once you've experienced a certain high the brain can remember that and always want to get
back to it so that's why sometimes it's better in life to avoid avoid things like that that will over consume your dopamine which is what drugs do and is what gets you addicted to it and so i don't have those same highs that i used to have but i have these highs that make me feel incredible joy pleasure happiness that's just different than what it was before but doesn't come with the crash doesn't come with the hangover so i'm way more steady throughout the day and just on a daily weekly basis which is great because
i'm able to you know show up in the way that i want to show up you know other times when i was you know back in my 20s addicted to dopamine and i'd have these crashes i could have a day and i have certain calls or meetings or interviews and i just couldn't get myself to function sometimes i'd have to cancel certain meetings and calls because you know i was just in this dopamine deficit state where i couldn't function the way that i wanted to and so that's been a huge huge thing having more motivation
has been a huge result that i've experienced not just for things like success or money or things like that because even by the way chasing money and success is a dopamine spike and it was actually something that i was addicted to as well but you have the motivation more just to get outside you know to socialize to meet up with people to play sports be outside in nature just to do things in your life versus before you know it'd be harder to get myself out of the house i'd much rather just play video games or
watch tv or just be on my computer or scroll through my phone you know those are things that were more comforting more pleasurable than it was getting outside so that was a a really great benefit as well just having more natural motivation to do things in my life my energy has drastically improved as well everything i'd say i experience more pleasure out of everything everything whether it's kissing my wife whether it's playing with my dog you know and just going to the park with him and running around uh you know even exercising going to the
gym certain hobbies and activities they're more fulfilling and more pleasurable for me which uh is is such a beautiful thing you know it's it's really sad how myself and many others have been disconnected from that because of this over over stimulation um but i will say honestly it's been very challenging um probably one of the most challenging things i've ever done in my life because you're overcoming a lot of the addictions that we have and obviously there's addictions that are severe like drugs and alcohol but without a doubt these are still addictions there's maybe different
degrees of addictions and different consequences for some some of these addictions but uh for me the the consequences were significant and the results of experience have been worth going through those ups and downs and so if you're someone that's on this journey maybe this relates to you in some way understand that usually when you go on this journey it gets worse before it gets better because when you start removing these things that gave you this high then what happens is you have cravings you have withdrawals you can't concentrate you feel tired you feel worse and
that can even happen for several weeks even several months until eventually you start to feel motivated again your brain starts to reset itself and it starts to go back to normal so understand that it's a journey it's a process i'm still on my journey i still got more work to do i still spend more time than i like in front of the computer in front of devices um consuming certain things that are pleasurable which by the way you can still do once in a while but it's more of the addiction to it and the over
stimulation to it which is on which is unhealthy i want to share with you guys a few resources as well number one is a book called dopamine nation by dr ann lemke really enjoyed this book i highly recommend that you read this book because it will help share more about dopamine how it affects us and talk a little bit about addiction as well another great book that really changed my life that was one of the first books that i read on this topic was called the molecule of more the molecule of more and it even
explained for me even when i was single you know when i was single i was addicted to chasing women you know because every time that you meet a new woman and she responds to you in a positive way huge spike in dopamine you get a woman's phone number huge spike in dopamine uh even if you hook up with a woman huge spike in dopamine but then there's a crash and then you're always in this cycle this perpetual cycle of always chasing that high and so you can't commit to someone you can't commit to being with
one person because you don't get the pleasure of just being with someone in a long-term relationship and once you reset your brain your relationship is so much better without a doubt my relationship with tatiana has improved as i've removed these things from my life so the molecule more is a fantastic book even attributes a lot of the most successful people throughout history as being dopamine addicts and explaining you know the the problems they have in their personal life in spite of the incredible successes they've achieved in society so that's a really fascinating book another great
book which is probably one of my favorite relationship books is called cupid's poison arrow cubits poison arrow that book also goes into dopamine how it affects us in our relationships and our sex life with orgasm um and so that's a really fantastic book if you're in a relationship and the last one i'll share with you guys is for those of you that watch pornography it's called your brain on porn your brain on porn a really great book that will explain what's happening happening to your brain which by the way they've measured this now with brain
scans they can measure your dopamine levels and how it gets stimulated by certain things that you do and when you're in a dopamine deficit state but your brain on porn is a great book because it really goes into the science and explains what's happening to your brain when you're watching pornography which will be very eye-opening for you and might even encourage you to give up watching pornography in your life so those are some great books that i can highly recommend to you guys otherwise there's many other videos on youtube there's a lot of content out
there these days on this concept and this idea of a dopamine detox i'll put some links below to the books and the resources that i mentioned in this video but if you're someone that's been on this journey leave a comment below let me know where you're at with it let me know if there's anything that's been really helping you let me know you know what your experience has been so far and some of the results you've experienced and if you're brand new to this also comment below i'd love to hear if any of this connects
and relates with you as well as usual i'm just trying to share with you guys my experience and hopefully my experience and what i've learned can benefit you and others that watch my videos my content i want to thank you guys so much if you enjoyed this video please give it a thumbs up subscribe here on project life mastery for more content on how to improve and master your life and i look forward to seeing you again in the next video god bless and take care
